"Thank you, kind sir," replied Peggy, with a gracious inclination of her head. "But why don't you like it? Isn't it pleasant to go out somewhere after a hard, dull day, and meet your friends, and talk about things that don't matter, and forget all about Oxford Street?"
"Yes," agreed Philip, "I suppose it is. I will confess this much: I know I should hate to go back to my old life at Wigmore Street now. I have widened out to that extent. But the worst of these social functions is that you have to put in a terrible lot of spadework before you get down to what you came out for."
"You mean supper?" suggested Peggy, with intentional flippancy. She found it difficult to control Philip's movements in conversation. He had no small talk. Introduce him to a topic, and in five minutes he had brushed aside the flimsy superficialities to which we are content to confine ourselves in our social encounters, and was digging heavily at the fundamental root of the matter.
"No, not supper," replied Philip gravely. "I mean this. A man usually regards these gatherings as a means to an end. He doesn't turn out after a hard day's work, to stand wedged in a hot room for hours on end, just because he likes it. He does not want to meet a chattering mob in the least. But he does want to meet one particular person very much, indeed; and perhaps the only way in which he can achieve his object is by plunging into a crowded room and talking to fifty bores first. It seems a terrible waste of energy,—like installing an entire electric light plant to illuminate one globe,—but sometimes it is the only way. And usually it is worth it!"
He paused, feeling a little surprised at himself. He could never have talked like this to Peggy a few months ago. Peggy said nothing.
"I often wonder," continued Philip presently, "when I find myself at one of these entertainments, how many of the men there have come because they like it and how many have come simply in the hope of encountering one particular pair of bright eyes. Women, I suppose, go because they really do enjoy it—the dresses, and the gaiety, and the opportunity to sparkle, and because it is the right house to be seen at—"
"Not always," said Peggy. "But why do you go, Philip?"
She repented of the question the moment she asked it, but Philip, who had planned the lines of this conversation months beforehand, and was not nearly nimble enough to take advantage of unexpected short cuts, blundered straight on.
"I go," he said frankly, "to try and get polished up a bit. I think I confessed to you once before that I was a pretty dull dog. I'm trying to cure that. So I go out tea-fighting."
"And all the time you would rather be at home with your feet on the mantelpiece?"